


We don't get tired, we get even

by prizewinningfruitcake



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Developing Friendships, F/M, King Alistair, Mage Rights, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 01:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16052405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prizewinningfruitcake/pseuds/prizewinningfruitcake
Summary: Warden Commander Halsa Tabris has a chat with her flighty new recruit.





	We don't get tired, we get even

In the moonlight, Halsa spots him outside the barracks, the mage she recruited not a week ago. He’s crouched before a wagon with a hand extended, a pack slung over his back. Sleep abandoned, she’d followed some suspicious noises, half hoping for a fight. There’s only him.

“Going somewhere?” she waits until she’s close enough to grab him if she needs to, and she’s satisfied to see him start and barely catch himself from dropping onto his arse. 

“Commander,” Anders straightens, smiles his roguish smile, “would you believe I was gathering some late night firewood?” Upright, he towers over her, even slouching like he does.

Halsa grins back at him. “Nope.” She points to the wagon, “What’s happening down there?”

“There’s a cat-” he stoops to look again, “-or there was. He’s been wandering around the past few days.” 

“So you were, what - on your way to take ship, and you stopped for a cat?” 

“Not my brightest move, now that I think of it.”

She sighs. Oghren said this would happen, and she knew he was right, but she couldn’t help herself. “You want something to eat?” she says.

“Actually,” Anders says, “I _am_ starving.”

“I know.” She points him towards the mess hall. 

She drops a plate between them, piled high with bread rolls and cheese and a bit of salt pork she dug from the larder. “It’s the Joining,” she says. “It gives you the Blight, but it’s got magic in it that makes you raging strong and hungry all the time.”

“And gives you bloody flaming visions in the language of the damned,” he says.

“Yeah. You sort of get used to that.”

“Well, I hate it.” He takes a vicious bite from a piece of bread. “I didn’t think I could hate something more than the Circle, but _they_ never actually poisoned me.”

“Tough shit.” Halsa leans forward on her elbows. “What would you do if I let you go? Run from Templars somewhere else? The Circle is a prison; this is a calling.”

“A calling that won’t let me leave. That still sounds like a prison.”

“You had more choice than I did,” she says.

“Then you’re a prisoner too.”

He doesn’t know the half. “You’re right,” she inclines her head, “I’m just as fucked as you. More fucked. That’s why I can’t let you leave, even if I wanted to. I’d smash your head in if it came to it, and I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t feel as bad about it as some other people I’ve had to kill. You understand?”

He scoffs and delicately picks up two blocks of cheese. “You didn’t have to take me in the first place. You just wanted to piss off the royals.”

“Not _just_ ,” she says. “I wasn’t gonna hand you over. I’d’ve felt bad if I went back and saw you got the brand.”

That gets his attention. He narrows his eyes and says, “What do you know about that?”

“Enough. I met some of those. Tranquil. When the Circle went all to shit. I guess you weren’t there for that, huh.” He shakes his head, lays his hands down. “You were lucky. Had to be hundreds dead. And that Templar wanted to go in and kill all the rest.”

“They cage us like animals and then punish us for acting like caged animals,” Anders says.

“It’s not right,” Halsa shakes her head.

“So you understand,” he fixes on her, “Can’t you do anything?”

She laughs, a single bitter note. “Do what, shout at the Grand Cleric from the street? I’m just an alienage rat.”

“Hang that. You’re the Hero of Ferelden.” He stares incredulous as she produces her flask. “Aren’t you?”

“Ask someone not a Warden or an elf who saved Ferelden and they’ll say Alistair did. They got their hero and their king; that’s all they wanted.” 

The words have been there, clawing at her from inside for months. Since the royal wedding. She hasn’t said them to anyone aloud. She offers her flask to Anders, who accepts it.

“It’s Oghren’s,” she says as he cringes. “Tastes like demon piss but it does the job.”

“So then, he fucked you over?” Anders braces himself for another pull and hands it back. “Alistair?”

“I don’t know,” Halsa answers truthfully. “I maybe brought it on myself. It’s a long story.”

“I wouldn’t mind hearing it.”

She isn’t drunk enough. “You might eventually,” she says. “So where were you going?”

He regards her for a moment, and says, “Kirkwall.” 

“That where you’re from?”

“No. I’m looking for someone.”

“Someone who fucked you over?” she asks.

Anders laughs. “In a manner of speaking.”

“Well,” she drawls, her tongue thicker for the alcohol, “the locals would have my head if I let you run loose -” Halsa never wanted to be an Arlessa, and wonders if the title was meant as a punishment, a mockery. “- but who knows when we’ll be needed in the Free Marches. I’m sure we’ll come up with an excuse.”

His eyebrows furrow, and he crosses his arms. “You’d do that for me?” 

“You’re my recruit,” she says. “I woulnd’t’ve fed you darkspawn blood if I didn’t think you were worth it.”

“That’s...nice,” he concedes, “in a creepy sort of way.”

“Wardens one and all,” she shrugs.

She walks him back to the barracks in the pale morning light. “Don’t forget, if I catch you running out on me again I’ll wreck your bony arse,” she says, and hands him a sack with the rest of the food - for when he inevitably needs it later.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, hardcore kids, XhmuX on Tumblr:
> 
> https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gothkimmyschmidt


End file.
